


Wash It All Away

by sidewinder



Series: The Spaces in Between [28]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Community: slashthedrabble, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewinder/pseuds/sidewinder
Summary: Sometimes it's not so easy. Not without help.





	Wash It All Away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Slash_The_Drabble prompt #477: Steam.

John rarely got home later than Fin these days, given his typical hours at the DA’s office versus when he’d been at SVU. But he’d stayed late this evening to help their new ADA, Peter Stone, with a difficult case headed to trial—and with some of the more challenging aspects of transitioning from Homicide to Special Victims.

That was something John was certainly familiar with himself, albeit many years ago.

Still, he frowned as he unlocked the apartment door and found the lights on, but no Fin. He wasn’t relaxing in the living room, watching TV or playing games as usual in the evening. John could hear the shower, and obviously it had been running for a long time given the cloud of steam drifting into the hallway from the bathroom.

That caused John’s frown to deepen. He shrugged off his coat and jacket, kicked off his shoes, and went to find him.

For a long, hot shower after work usually meant only one thing: a day that had been particularly rough. A day to forget as fast as possible, to try to scrub thoroughly off your skin, wash completely out of your mind. Your soul.

You would try. But the water alone never really did the trick.

John shed the rest of his clothing in the bedroom before entering the bath. Steam fogged the mirror and the shower stall door and he breathed it in, feeling the humid warmth fall over him like a heavy blanket.

“It’s just me,” he said before stepping into the shower, not wanting to startle Fin. He found his husband standing beneath the spray—head down, back to him, hands splayed on the tile wall. Under other circumstances it would have been a tempting sight, but tonight it stirred no arousal.

Only sympathy, and a desire to help.

Fin uttered a small noise in acknowledgement of John’s presence. John took the bar of soap and lathered up his hands, started massaging Fin’s shoulders and back. He worked slowly, with a gentle touch meant to soothe, to heal. He knew all the places Fin tended to carry his tension and tried to spend extra time there, even when it made the man twitch or grunt in response.

The brief physical pain would at least distract from the deeper emotional kind.

He stayed under the shower spray with Fin until the hot water started to run out. Shutting it off, Fin turned at last to face John, gratitude in his eyes.

“Did you eat dinner?” John asked.

“Nah. Wasn’t hungry.”

He had figured. “Then you won’t mind if I finish off the pot roast.”

“Be my guest.”

It would be several nights, and more than several drinks deep into another evening—this one at the bar, after friends and coworkers departed—before Fin talked about that day.

And that was fine. There was no rush. Time could offer the healing that water never could.

Time, and understanding, and love formed through so many years together.


End file.
